After using the 5 Ps of Premise Prep to suss out what your book is all about, it’s time to condense all that information down into a few sentences. In other words, it’s time to create your premise!
Premise Benefits
A premise is helpful for a few reasons.
First, it helps you clarify your idea for the piece. If you’ve found yourself writing around in circles and going off on tangents during the creative process, having a premise can provide a guidepost so you can always know when you’re wandering too far from your core story and put yourself back on track (if you want to!).
Second, when it comes time to create a synopsis or a log line, you already have a solid start if you’ve prepared a premise. Premises and log lines are kissing cousins!
Third, if you haven’t created a blurb for your book already, having a premise set up will help you write your blurb as well.
Premise Creation
Because you’ve done your preparations, creating the premise will probably take you all of two minutes. Here’s the general format, though you can rearrange things as you see fit, so long as each element is present:
[PAIN] [PERSON] wants [PRIZE]. But they must overcome [PITFALLS] in order to do so. This journey will push them to [PROMISE].or
[PERSON] wants [PRIZE], but they have [PITFALLS] and [PAIN] to work through. BOOK TITLE will provide [PROMISE].
See? EASY!
To reiterate: you don’t have to stick with these arrangements. You can rearrange the elements of these sentences as you wish. This is just a starting point. You can also change it around later if you change character names, goals, pitfalls, and other components of the book. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, and the like. Just get the premise written!
Here are some examples.
FICTION: Overly trusting Red wants to get to grandmother’s house to deliver food and medicine. But she must overcome a clever, hungry wolf in order to do so. The experience pushes her to grow more cautious about strangers and encourages young children to do the same.
FICTION: Perfect wife, Erika, wants to maintain her celebrity status as a flawless spouse. But she must overcome her husband’s mistresses and waning interest in her, her former relationship with a colleague, and the police on her trail in order to do so. The situation pushes her to realize that perfection is an illusion that has cost her everything.
SELF-HELP: New writers want to finish their manuscript in a year or less. But they must overcome their assumptions about authorship, their limited experience with writing, and their lack of knowledge about manuscript creation in order to do so. The 12-Month Manuscript will help them become savvy artists who can complete manuscripts quickly and efficiently.
MEMOIR: As a self-conscious teen, I wanted to become a pediatrician. But I had to overcome parents who forced me into law school, a boyfriend who thought all doctors were criminals, and my own dyslexia in order to do so. My experience pushed me to develop confident and inner strength in order to learn to live on my own terms.
Now it’s your turn!